


Trust

by 4RU



Series: Genyatta Week 2016 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Talon!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8777311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4RU/pseuds/4RU
Summary: Trust is a difficult concept for Genji.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so. This is all part of my [Talon!Genji AU](http://spartadog.tumblr.com/post/150839390240/4-ru-commissioned-me-for-my-interpretation-of) that I haven't gotten the chance to write yet. Basic summation: Talon finds Genji instead of Overwatch and turns him into a cyborg that literally cannot disobey their orders. When he goes to attack the Shambali on Talon's command, Zenyatta not only kicks his ass but also destroys the control module keeping him under Talon's thumb. A (very reluctant) relationship blossoms from there.
> 
> Because I missed day one of Genyatta week, this fic will count as both First and Confession. A first confession! :D
> 
> Headcanon for Zenyatta's age is all [Knacc's](https://knaccfornerdiness.tumblr.com/). Talon!Genji's design is by [Sparta.](http://spartadog.tumblr.com/)

Trust is a difficult concept for Genji. Betrayal has jaded him over the years, from the heartbreak of Hanzo's blade cutting him down to the invasive perversion of Talon's experiments. Genji does not trust simply because to trust is to let one's guard down, to be taken advantage of again and again. It's a harsh lesson he's well-acquainted with, and with his grotesque body under his own command once more he'll fall upon his own dragonblade before losing himself to anyone ever again.  
  
Not even Zenyatta.  
  
Why Genji decided to remain among the Shambali, he isn't entirely certain. He tells himself a myriad of excuses, from suspicion to something akin to honoring a debt. None settle quite right on his tongue. He doesn't trust Zenyatta, nor the other monks. Not even Mondatta, though he rarely sees their esteemed leader. Genji is neither student nor guest, more like a wary bird that has flown in for shelter from a bitter winter. He listens to their teachings, their chants, but does not strictly participate. Or at least, that's what he tells himself.  
  
He does meditate, when he's certain he is alone and there are none who might sneak up and take advantage of his state. Something he's picked up from the monks, but never strictly been taught. Learning from observation. It helps his shattered mind, to a degree. It's a good distraction from when he dreams, from when the memories of being strapped to an operating table become too much to bear.  
  
Zenyatta doesn't say much, but then he doesn't need to. The omnic doesn't tolerate Genji's presence so much as he welcomes it. Genji may not join the students and monks, but Zenyatta adjusts his volume to welcome the silent spectator all the same. Teachings of patience, of calm, of acceptance and forgiveness become daily lectures; ones Genji once skittered away from like a startled animal but has since begun to slowly ingest.  
  
And yet the wounds of betrayal remain. There are entire weeks where Genji will avoid the monks altogether, paranoid in spite of himself. What if they are awaiting for him to let down his guard? What if it is all a ploy? Sensibly, he knows this for a falsehood – if they so wished they could have destroyed him wholly during his arrival and subsequent fight. But his mind does not still in its entirety and the invasive thoughts do not seem eager to leave him be.  
  
It is Zenyatta, as perceptive as ever, who broaches the topic and offers a solution to help put Genji's mind at ease.  
  
An interface. Genji will be allowed within Zenyatta's systems to search every nook and cranny of thought, ever ounce of the omnic's very being, for any hint or sign of malice and ill-intent. A simple thing, Zenyatta says, as if he isn't offering to bare himself to a man who had tried to cull him and everyone in the temple. Genji outright disagrees. Zenyatta is familiar with what it means to be a machine and Genji still has not yet fully come to grips with his own cybernetics. How easy it would be for the omnic to overpower him in such a situation.  
  
At first, that reasoning is enough. Genji puts the idea out of his mind and doesn't dwell on it at all. But small ideas have a way of sticking and making incessant nuisances of themselves. It takes two entire months before Genji, sick of his own anxiety and paranoia, seeks out Zenyatta to rescind his prior decision, but only on the condition that Zenyatta teach him how to shield himself first.  
  
The lessons that take the shape from that day onward are difficult and strange. Accessing the parts of himself he would rather not think about requires a certain amount of perseverance and abstract thought process. Talon had always handled the mechanical pieces of him before, parts of himself that had been shielded away from tampering even by Genji's own mind. And when Zenyatta destroyed the control module, Genji had all but tried to forget that his brain and body were only partly organic.  
  
Now, Zenyatta eases him into understanding the importance of self-maintenance, of upkeep and firewalls. Defragmentation, scans, and all sorts of housekeeping. In spite of his misgivings, under the monk's instruction Genji finds his body running much better than it typically does after a session of optimization.  
  
It is then and only then, once Genji has learned to carefully construct firewalls around himself, that Zenyatta allows the interface to occur.  
  
They find a secluded room with Zenyatta's insistence, and there the monk sits before him, turns around, and offers the base of his neck to Genji to accept the connection wire. It is there that Genji hesitates again, just before he can drive the jack home, and asks why Zenyatta is allowing him to do this when he could oh so easily destroy everything Zenyatta is.  
  
“I trust you.”  
  
And he does not know how to reply to that gentle admittance, so he opts instead to get the interface over with and be done already.  
  
Jacking into an omnic is not at all like accessing his own protocols. Genji is first met with a firewall of Zenyatta's own, many-times more complex than anything he's ever witnessed or thought he might witness. But once his presence is recorded and accepted (“ _greetings, Genji_ ”), it parts as easily as an open door.  
  
From there, Genji is overwhelmed.  
  
There is no way to truthfully describe what it is like. Zenyatta's being (his mind? his soul?) is as vast as an ocean and many times as deep. He is welcomed with no resistance, allowed to swim in a sea of data where he drifts for an eternity, a millisecond, lost in spite of himself. And something like gentle amusement washes over him, Zenyatta's emotion as close to him as the metal plates on his body. He lets the omnic guide him to specific memory banks, dated some years ago.  
  
Something akin to accusation answers that when Genji realizes that there is a discrepancy, that Zenyatta's age does not match the files in the bank. Such thoughts are dismissed, however, along with the truth of the matter being that _Zenyatta_ was born when he joined the Shambali, not the production date the omnium gave him.  
  
And there Genji sees memories. Thoughts. Emotions. He walks the snowridden mountain to what will become the Temple in several years' time. He meets the omnics that become Zenyatta's brothers and sisters. Even Mondatta colors these memories, shifting from an authoritative figure to a dear elder brother.  
  
Genji walks along in Zenyatta's footsteps. Amusing memories. Heartbreaking ones. He sees them all. He feels every emotion. He thinks every thought. And when one archive has been thoroughly explored, Zenyatta guides him along to another. Then another.  
  
Sometimes he pauses and shares a particularly humorous memory. Genji learns that Zenyatta is a devious soul. Devious, but never cruel. Never one to seek pain or harm in another. He learns of Zenyatta's humor, of things he enjoys. He sees many sunrises and sunsets, the constellations and stars, watches the milky way spin above countless times.  
  
He does not reach even half of Zenyatta's memory banks before Genji severs the connection and unplugs. A brief sense of confusion follows him as he does so but Zenyatta does not object or fight his withdrawal. It takes Genji a moment to collect himself, to reflect on what he's learned.  
  
Then he reaches up with clawed fingers, oh so carefully touching the seams of his visor and clicking it off with a hiss of depressurized air. He looks upon Zenyatta not from behind a screen, but with his own brown eyes for the first time.  
  
Genji does not speak, but then he does not need to. And when Zenyatta asks if he would join him in meditation, Genji bows his head in agreement, closes his eyes, and falls into the comforting mantra of peace.

 


End file.
